View From The Quad

There is a well known piece of flaura in the tech world called a Flaceplant, or a Muchicus Painius (to give it it’s correct latin name).

Many of these Faceplants grow in areas of extreme pain in amusing pictures which you can find on the internet, sometimes involving motorbikes.

One company plans to end all this, and in 2010 this product will come out, making a previously deadly and dangerous situation into a hilarious time for all the family.

The D-air will aim to keep your face away from the speeding ground, and will inflate when you start falling.

There are a few things which have gone wrong in the last year or so with Apple. In my mind, the main one was charging for the iPod Touch update a few months back, hearing the uproar and then deciding to charge AGAIN for the June update.

However, some would say that Apple’s move to get Safari 3.1 out into the Bill Gates ruled world of Windows computers was walking a little far over the line.

More after the jump.

Read more

In this episode of View From The Quad, I interview genius behind One Among the Sleepless and the Hall of Mirrors, Mike Bennet. We talk about a HUGE number of topics, from bunny rabbits to S&M, from dancing turkeys to monsters. Visit him at www.OneAmongthesleepless.com

 

 Standard Podcast [29:34m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hey there kids! The Starting World of Warcraft (or Starting WoW for slightly shorter) podcast has just been launched at www.StartingWoW.com and you are invited to listen! It is only a short 3-4 min episode, explaining what will be going on, but remember to subscribe in order to get it for free every time an episode is released! If the iTunes button doesn’t work on the site, click the RSS Podcast button next to it and then select iTunes on the page which opens if you are using iTunes.

To who it may concern.
Over the past year and a half, or there abouts, I have been a paying member of Switchpod. Basically, they have pretty much disappointed me at every hurdle, from the stats system, which I have been promised on numerous occasions will “Be updated tomorrow. We Promise!” The strange downtime, the errors with the log-in system and of course, the terribly designed website.

I have decided that I refuse to take any more of this, and want to switch to Libsyn. Imagine my surprise when it is hinted at that not only will I have to give up my feed when I stop paying because of the switch, but switchpod will start inserting advertising into my feed.

Continuing, Switchpod support staff have REPEATEDLY refused to answer two simple questions, related to the above thing which surprised me.

1. Is the redirect feed option available for non-paying members
2. will ads be inserted into the redirected feed.

I feel that if it is not available for non-paying members, or if advertisements are inserted, I deserve to keep my “paying” account without actually having to pay for it, for the sole use of redirecting my switchpod feed to a libsyn feed or maybe my own feed from my own web hosting service. I believe this for the following reasons

1. From the get go, switchpod lied about their service. When I signed up, they were promising “The most advanced stats” and, as we can all see, the stats system is an utter joke. The joke even goes as far as to STILL have the following message printed on the stats page. “Hi, We are experiencing some technical difficulties. We are working to make the new stats page better for the site. We will be moving the stats engine to a new server to improve server performance. We will email when every thing is up. Thanks. - Jan. 28, 2007″. Rob, over there at wizzard.tv personally promised me, in person, at the PNME that switchpod would have a nice stats system running withen a week of the PNME 2007. We shook hands, and he went on to say that if there was not a new stats system, The coder responsible would be fired.
I mean, january 2007, we were being promised new stats. Have they shown up? NO.
2. Check through your support files to see how many problems I have had with switchpod, from files deleting themselves to my account being inaccessible for large amounts of time, remembering that I actually have to give the support staff my username and password, something which I find really… silly. Not forgetting that they tend to dance around questions so that they don’t have to answer them.
3. I was promised by somebody at wizzard.tv that you were working on getting “Switchpod up there with the big boys of podcast hosting”. Has this happened? Clearly not. Switchpod is a system which by rights, should have a warning on the front page saying that any podcaster who takes themselves seriously should not sign up.

In conclusion, I am requesting a transfer to Libsyn, with however much “credit” I have left on switchpod going into the libsyn account. I would also like for switchpod to redirect my feed for free, without inserting advertising into it. I will remove all my files from switchpod, and host them on libsyn instead, because leaving them on switchpod would not only be useless, but unfair to them.

Yours Sincerely,

Cian Mac Mahon
—————————————————————
Cian Mac Mahon
Professional Podcaster
Available for voice work, consulting

www.viewfromthequad.com

Intro

Watch the lovely music I play in the intro at http://tinyurl.com/235ysk and download a lovely stereo copy

Topics Covered

NEW Section: “Top Ten Thoughts”

In this section I rant for about 3 minutes on 10 seemingly unrelated things. Covered in this edition, the Irish release of the iPhone, people who wear Fake Tan, Will Farral and Roast Chicken, and much more!

The Irish release of the iPhone will suck. Terribly. Believe me, and if you don’t, check out http://tinyurl.com/2qq7aw, a Gizmodo UK artical about how us Irish are getting shafted.

Heroes: Volume 1 is a LOVELY hardback compliation of all the Heroes webcomics from Season 1. You can buy it at http://tinyurl.com/39bzwu through Amazon. It is WELL worth it for the Heroes fan.

My mixer board is still down and out for the count. This would be a GREAT time for you to donate your life savings to me through the donation button at http://www.viewfromthequad.com

I don’t get many voicemail any more for some reason… And I like the voicemail music. So ring (001) 206 203 4610

Links

http://tinyurl.com/2mo63e - Going Postal, a book by Terry Pratchett

http://tinyurl.com/2pcnoh - Making Money, a book by Terry Pratchett

http://www.teenpodcasters.com - Teen Podcaster Network

Contact Me!

You can email me at cian@viewfromthequad.com

You can visit the website, join in the forums and leave comments on each and every episode of VFTQ, not to MENTION look back over the archives at http://www.viewfromthequad.com

Ring the voicemail line and let me know how you feel about any of the topics covered in this episode, such as the Irish edition of the iPhone! 001 206 4610 is the number you want to ring.

That  just about covers it for this episode. Stay subscribed now, you hear?

 

 Standard Podcast [13:41m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download